


Promise Me

by plinys



Series: ABC Fic Challenge [7]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-02
Updated: 2015-05-02
Packaged: 2018-03-26 17:50:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3859342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a voice in his head that he would know anywhere, humming their mother’s old lullabies, 'I promised I’d keep you safe, remember?'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Promise Me

**Author's Note:**

> Wow guess who just saw AOU and was like "time to write some maximoff angst," oops. Major spoilers for Age of Ultron if you read this like seriously, if you have not seen the movie, turn back now!
> 
> Also works for my ABC fic challenge with the word "gone."

Twelve minutes.

That’s how long he had lived in this world without her.

He cannot remember the minutes, but tries to picture them from time to time, the stinging loneliness he imagines having felt inherently as an infant.

And then the greatest joy imaginable as his twin joined him in this world.

\---

“You’ll protect Wanda, won’t you,” his mother says, buttoning up his coat for him before their first day of school, “promise me you will.”

And he makes every promise he can, swearing up and down that he won’t let anything happen to Wanda, that he’ll be there every step of the way to keep her safe.

It’s only once they’re onto the street, hurrying towards the school building, that her hand slips into his and squeezes it reassuringly, “mama made me say the same thing.”

“But I meant it.”

“I did too.”

\---

He stares at the letters on the side of the bomb, forcing himself to remember the curve of them, sounding it out in his head the way their mother had taught them, until there’s no way he could possibly forget.

“I’ve got you,” he says, the words no longer sounding reassuring to his own ears, “you’re safe, I’ve got you.”

Nothing he can say can seem to stop her tears.

But he repeats the words until his throat runs raw, because he promised he’d protect her and there’s no way he’s breaking that promise.

\---

Days later when they’re finally rescued, the tears finally seem to have run their course, but her cheeks are red and raw and she trembles like a leaf standing on the streets.

He runs his hands over her shoulders, the way their mother used to, as if that could calm the shaking. But It only seems to make things worse, as she looks up at him with red rimmed eyes, lips trembling once more, without any tears to spill.

The doctor’s try to separate them, to check for injuries, and she refuses to let go of his fingers, clutching them tighter than before, “mama told Pietro to protect me! He has to stay!”

“I’ll be right back, Wanda, I promise.”

He leaves unsaid the promise that he’ll _always_ come back for her.

\---

His fingers shake as he tries to tie the ribbon again.

 _Red,_ because Wanda likes red.

Their mother had always done it before, tied Wanda’s ribbon and buttoned up his coat, before sending them off on their way to temple or lessons.

But their mother was gone, and the strange old woman running the orphanage turned Wanda away when she asked to have her ribbon tied.

So he ties her ribbon as best he can and tells her that she looks, “just like a princess.”

Even though he knows she hardly believes him.

\---

He watches as she grows out of ribbons and dawns leather jackets instead, righteously angry at a world that wronged them when they were too young to know better.

They sit together in flat with two broken windows and water that runs brown more often than not, watching the news on a scratchy tv.

“That’s him,” she says, pointing out the man on screen.

And he doesn’t have to ask who she’s talking about, because he’d stayed at that name for too many days straight to ever forget the shape of those letters.

\---

There are whispers in the streets, rumors of men come to try and change the world, to end the violence of their war torn country. He doesn’t know much about them, but people talk, and their words are good and kind.

So he foolishly believe them.

“It’d be honest work,” he tells her over dinner one night, “they’re looking for soldiers.”

“You’re not a solider, Pietro,” she reminds him softly.

It’s not a denial, but not approval either. He knows that he won’t go through with it without her approval, so he remains silent until she speaks up again.

 “You’ll let me come too, yes?”

He wants to insist that it’s too dangerous, that she should stay home, but they both knew all too well that the horrors of war could end up in your home.

And he cannot do this without her. 

“I had hoped.”

\---

There’s a wall separating them.

It’s for their own _safety_ the doctor’s insist.

Though he’d argue with them if he could remember the words, that nothing is safe when he cannot see her.

There’s a ghost of a memory, of terrified screams that had sounded like Wanda’s and he rages again, throwing his body into the wall so fast it doesn’t even feel real. Every movement seems to be foreign, his own body an unfamiliar tool that shakes each second he tries to use it.

When he slumps down against the wall unable to do anything else, he imagines he can feel her on the other side doing the same thing.

\---

The first time he feels the second presence in his mind, he panics.

Worried this is yet another side effect of the experiments, that he’s losing his mind too and soon will go his will to live. He’s heard it happen often enough. Nobody before had lived through these experiments and he had been foolish enough to volunteer, to bring Wanda here-

But it’s there the waves of comfort, the calm washing over him calming his racing heart, for the first time the constant shaking of his body calms to a light tremor.

There’s a voice in his head that he would know anywhere, humming their mother’s old lullabies, _I promised I’d keep you safe, remember?_

His voice is raw from disuse as he manages the word, “yes.”

\---

The doctor’s cannot seem to figure out why they were a success when nobody else could survive the trails.

But there’s a voice in his head now, always reminding him why _they_ were still alive.

Still, the whole project is marked as a success, and the boy that never was a solider finds the shoes ill-fitting.

\---

They could run away.

He could take them away to somewhere safe.

He tells her as much, when the world starts to fall apart. Insists they should let the other handle things and protect themselves like they always have.

She just shakes her head, treads her fingers into his and says, “I have to fix this. You can leave, if you’d rather.”

“I can't go without you, you know that.”

And she smiles at him, soft and sad like she expected anything else, “I know.”

\---

“I’m not leaving you here,” he says.

He knows she’s in his head, remembering that promise made years ago. The one that means he can’t leave her now.

Still she meets his gaze stubbornly (for she would not be Wanda if she were not stubborn) and insists, “I can handle this.”

And he believes her.

\---

As he gasps his final breathes, he can feel a voice in his head, telling him to fight it even though they both know there is nothing left to fight.

_You promised._

\---

Those twelves minutes feel like nothing.

When she’s about to face an eternity without him.


End file.
